Maxwell Cain 2: With a Side of Vengeance Page 6

  Hank strode up to Max and hefted his sword and shield. “What’s the play here, Max?”

  Max glanced around the group in surprise. “You want me to lead you?”

  Everyone except Johnny nodded.

  Hank bumped Max’s chest gently with his shield. “You led us against the laser mammoth when he was picking us off one by one. I figure we’re safest sticking together.”

  “Okay,” Max said, then drew a deep breath. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. Form a line with me and face the enemy tunnel. Whatever comes out, we stand together. Even when the battle gets loud, listen for my orders. Follow my direction and we’ll get through.”

  All the men nodded. They lined up, with Johnny on the extreme right edge as far from Max as he could get, but even he fell into line with the other men.

  Andy laughed from his platform, and his voice boomed through the arena. “Looks like our nine little gladiators are lining up to die. Give our brave fighters a hand, folks!”

  The crowd went wild, stomping and cheering. The noise was deafening.

  “Enough with the animals,” Andy announced. “It just doesn’t seem fair to pit noble creatures against savages. And it’s getting rather expensive.” He paused to glare at Max, then smiled cruelly. “From here on out, battles will be man against man. Open the gates and send in my soldiers!”

  The other iron portcullis ground open. Twenty muscled men in Roman leather battle armor with swords and shields charged into the arena and swarmed toward Max and his crew. The fastest runners drew ahead of the pack, while the slowest lagged behind, creating three distinct attacking groups.

  Max stepped forward and raised his shield. “Shield wall! Interlock your shields, left side forward. Stand together or die!”

  Each of the nine men interlocked their shields. As the first enemy soldiers reached them, Max’s crew absorbed their blows on their interlocked shields. The besieged defenders counterattacked with swift thrusts, piercing their exposed enemies at close range. Max stabbed one of the attackers through the throat. Five enemies died at the foot of the shield wall before the next wave of soldiers wised up and hung back, wary of the death trap.

  “Break!” Max shouted. He separated his shield from the men around him and surged forward, stepping over the dead men to charge his foes.

  He swung his sword at the first enemy he reached, but the man blocked it with his shield. Max used his momentum to bash his foe with his own shield, throwing him off balance. He thrust forward and stabbed the soldier in the shoulder, then bashed his temple with the rim of his shield. The enemy soldier dropped like a sack of bricks. Max stepped over him to reach the next foe.

  The second athletic soldier lunged at Max with a snarl. The two combatants traded blows, their attacks hammering each other’s shields with ferocious force. Max fought relentlessly, raining blows on his foe’s shield before suddenly ducking low. The move obscured Max from his enemy’s vision, and the soldier instinctively lowered his shield to see. Max lunged upward with a thrust that pierced the man’s throat and left him gurgling to death in the trampled sand.

  The second wave of men was half dead.

  “Shield wall!” Max bellowed. Two of the ragged men had been killed, but the surviving men rallied around Max and locked their shields together. Together, the seven faced the survivors of the second wave just as the third wave caught up. The entire battle had taken half a minute, but Max’s crew had already killed eleven enemies and nearly evened the odds.

  Max and his men clashed with the remaining nine attackers. The slower runners had seen what the shield wall did to their swifter companions, so Max and his crew only killed one additional man before the two lines faced each other at a short distance. The enemy guards used careful attacks, poking the line, but Max and his crew thrust their steel right back.

  Seeing them deadlocked, Max shouted, “Break!” He charged forward into enemy lines, swatted aside a sword, and kneed the attacker in the gut. When the man doubled over, Max beheaded him with one clean stroke. He used the momentum from the attack to spin into a second slash, cutting another man across the throat. His victim’s arterial spray fountained through the air and splashed Max’s shield.

  The other three gladiators whom Max hadn’t gotten to know fell under enemy blades, leaving only Max, Johnny, Hank, and Keel against five men.

  “Reinforcements,” Andy called, “advance!”

  “Reinforcements?” Max thundered in outrage as ten more soldiers hustled from the enemy tunnel and entered the fray.

  Max faced two men who slashed at him from opposite sides, flanking him. He twisted and cut, blocking with sword and shield, as the enemies harried him. Johnny and Hank faced the same dilemma, taking on multiple enemies at once. Keel looked stricken. He desperately strove to run to Max’s side, but several enemy soldiers cut him off from the Reaper leader.

  Max watched with growing worry as they closed in on the young boy. The angry leader hurled himself against one of his two foes, using his shield as a barrier as he slammed down on the man, driving him to the sand. Max stabbed him through a gap in his armor, then rolled aside as the other soldier tried to stab him. The foe’s blade thrust into his own ally instead and got stuck in the dying soldier’s leather armor. Max beheaded the disarmed soldier and rushed to rescue Keel.

  Keel fought for his life, desperately sheltering behind his shield. His sword gleamed clean, not a drop of blood on the blade, as he hunkered down behind his shield and scurried away. Three enemy soldiers hemmed him in, stalking him like predatory cats.

  Max surged toward the rearmost attacker. The man turned on him just in time to avoid the killing stroke, but Max’s second attack caught him across the temple and sheared his head in half. The corpse dropped to the sand as Max charged the second man.

  The next soldier blocked Max’s first and second thrusts, then returned with his own slash that banged Max’s shield. Max sliced at the man’s legs, forcing him to retreat, but the soldier proved skilled at combat and maintained his balance.

  The third soldier advanced on Keel, battering his shield with a rain of blows. The young man screamed in terror, and the sound filled Max with rage.

  Max kicked sand at his enemy. The move surprised the soldier, and sand struck him in the eyes and mouth. He staggered around, swinging uselessly. Max struck him down without mercy and surged past before the corpse had even fallen to the sand.

  The third soldier bashed Keel’s shield aside. The teen barely had time to gawk at his attacker in horror before the soldier ran him through, sinking his blade to the hilt in Keel’s abdomen. Keel tried to scream but only managed a gasp. The soldier wrenched his blade free and turned to confront Max as the leader charged, leaving Keel to collapse bleeding on the sand.

  Max roared with fury. Heedless of the danger he bolted straight at Keel’s killer, tackling him around the middle and slamming him down on the ground. He reversed the grip on his sword and stabbed it into the enemy’s gaping mouth, punching through the back of his head and pinning the dying soldier to the ground. Without even waiting for the man to stop twitching, Max leaped from the body and rushed to Keel, gathering the impaled boy up in his arms.

  The magnetic force kicked on and yanked all the swords and shields into the air. Max barely registered the end of the battle as he gingerly lifted the skewered teen.

  Keel’s body was soaked in his own blood which poured from both his front and back. The wounds were ghastly, ragged and torn, and Keel grimaced in agony as Max held him to his chest.

  “Max,” he whispered.

  “I’m here,” Max said. “I’m here, Keel.”

  Keel reached up with one hand. Max seized it with his own, the blood of his foes mingling with Keel’s as they clasped hands. The boy’s grip felt weak and limp.

  “I wish I could have gone with you,” Keel whispered. “I wish I could have joined you and been a hero, too.”

  Tears burned in Max’s eyes. “I’m no hero, Keel. I just get revenge on bad men. I couldn’t even save you.”

  “You’re a hero, Max.” Keel coughed, and blood bubbled up between his lips. “I know you are. Keep being a hero. Rescue everyone, Max. I believe in you.”

  “I will,” Max vowed. “I will, Keel. You rest easy. I’ll get them out.”

  Keel smiled weakly, then let out his last breath and was gone.

  A single tear dripped from Max’s eye and splashed on Keel’s cheek. The bloody avenger raised his eyes and glared at Andy Wong across the arena. “I’ll get them out, Keel,” he swore. “And I’ll kill the bastard who did this to you.”

  Chapter 13

  You Won’t Like Me When I’m Angry

  More guards with guns came out and forced Max, Johnny, and Hank at gunpoint back into the tunnel. Max looked back one last time to see Keel’s body lying in the bloody sand.

  The guards shoved them back into their cages, then left.

  “This room’s looking awfully empty,” Johnny observed calmly.

  Max pounded his cage bars in anger. “Those rotten bastards. They spend our lives like nothing.”

  “We are nothing to them,” Hank said. “To Andy Wong, we’re just something he can buy and use as he sees fit. Human life has no value to him except how it can be used to fill his pockets.”

  “He’s like every other piece of shit I’ve met,” Max growled. “I’m gonna kill him.”

  Johnny sighed and leaned against the back of his cage. “Wasting your breath, Cain. The whole world operates this way. The strong eat the weak. What good does it to do piss and moan about it?”

  “What’s the alternative?” Max demanded. “Surrender m
y honor and beg for scraps, like you?”

  Johnny glowered at him. “A man uses his strength to take what he can.”

  “Animals do that, Johnny. A man uses his strength to shelter the people under his protection. That’s exactly why I have to get out of here.”

  Hank broke into their argument. “You don’t still imagine you’re gonna get out, do you?”

  “You bet your ass I do.”

  Hank looked incredulous. “There’s only three of us now. And Johnny over there wants to gut you.”

  “Strangle him,” Johnny corrected.

  Hank shook his head. “What are you hoping to accomplish like this, Max? Even if you could get out of the pit, what can you hope to do?”

  Max stared Hank straight in the eye. “I’m going to kill Andy Wong, for one. I’m going to get us home, for two. Then I’m going to lead my team back here and burn everything Andy Wong owns right to the ground. I’ll free any other slaves he’s got and honor my promise to Keel. I will do what I always do: dispense justice where no one else can.”

  Johnny scrutinized him. “What the hell makes you try so hard, Cain? Your stupid crusader mentality only makes more work for you, and in this dog-eat-dog world that’s just playing life on hard mode. Why shackle yourself with this belligerent concept of justice?”

  Max sighed and leaned his head forward against his cage bars. “My father stamped justice into my bones from the day I was born. Other kids got bedtime stories about happy animals, I heard about tyrannical warlords cut down by ruthless heroes. When neighbor kids got picked on, I got to choose between standing up for what was right or answering to my old man for chickening out. And he’d never raise a hand to me when I fell short. He’d just ask me how I thought those other kids must feel at home, knowing no one in the world would stand up for them. And damned if that didn’t hurt worse than a hundred beatings.”

  “Admirable man,” Hank said. “What’d he do?”

  “Special forces,” Max replied. “Military to the bone. Wanted me to follow him in, too. Damn near broke his heart when I told him I wanted to be a cop, but when I told him it was to make sure the poor received true justice, he understood. Brought all his military buddies to see me graduate the academy.”

  “You still a cop?” Hank asked.

  Max laughed. “Nah. Got fired for being too dedicated to justice. California ain’t friendly to men who do what’s right, and San Pajita bumps that hostility up another notch. The government replaces our biological honor code with legalism and supplants natural leaders with bureaucratic rule. That means the only men who rise to the top are those weak enough not to challenge the iron fist of the State and wicked enough to exploit their neighbors. They find legal loopholes to feed on those around them. Loopholes like San Pajita’s “voluntary restitution,” which allows any criminal committing any crime to pay their way out with a measly fine. They get full legal coverage and the bureaucrats grow fat on bribes.

  “If you get abused and fight back, the wicked cry to the State that they weren’t doing anything technically wrong, since they’ve always paid their fines. Nevermind how brutally you’ve been treated, as long as it isn’t technically against the law, you’re the one in the wrong for defending yourself. The State puts its boot on your throat and demands compliance. They’re likely to reward the wicked with compensation for the justice you attempted against them. The State makes sure your punishment is announced to the rest of society to demonstrate the futility of defying them. And everyone who watches this play out feels helpless against the machinations of the wicked. That just emboldens the wicked in their future schemes.”

  “Exactly,” Johnny said. “So you’re not as stupid as you look. If you understand how this setup works, why stick your neck out?”

  “Because knowing how things are doesn’t make it right.” Max raised his head to glare at Johnny. “If everyone just sits quietly and lets this continue, we get a society plunging recklessly into oblivion. Such a system cannot hold because it’s built to let predators feed on every contributing member of society. There’s a handful of predators, but vast legions of common people just trying to feed their families. Press them down hard enough and they can’t just give up: they have kids to feed. Instead, they explode. That’s why no tyrannical government has ever endured indefinitely. The dog always eventually wakes up to shake off the fleas that bite it, and the working class always eventually has enough of the bloated parasites feeding on it. When the bites become too much, society erupts and purges the parasites.”

  Johnny acknowledged this with a shrug. “So why fight it? Sounds like the problem will take care of itself.”

  “It will,” Max agreed, “but at enormous expense. We don’t have to reach that point yet. Revolutions are bloody. People die, and not just the fighting men, but women and children caught in the crossfire or who starve to death when no one is growing the food. Every wicked predator I put down is one more day that revolution gets pushed back, one more inch toward a better world. If we can kill enough of them and change the system to encourage honor instead of predation, maybe we can turn this ship around and give people a system worth keeping. Maybe we can get a better world for the next couple generations. And if we teach our kids better than the last few generations did, maybe they can keep the better society for a long time. We could build a real age of peace.”

  “A better world through killing evil men,” Hank mused.

  “A better world for our descendants,” Max said. “A legacy of peace.”

  “Foolishness,” Johnny rumbled.

  Max scrutinized him. “What was left after you died, Johnny?”

  Johnny squinted his eyes at the question. “What do you mean?”

  “What was left? I checked, and you didn’t have any next of kin, no one to inherit your stuff. Your accounts probably got seized by the State, right? So your money is gone. Your belongings probably got auctioned off to support the State’s bloated budget. Your employer was dead, and your organization moved along without you. You got resurrected just to go after a single man for personal revenge, but what other problem did Antonio have that he couldn’t move on without you? What was left after you died?”

  Johnny furrowed his brow. “It’s just as you say, everything’s gone. But so what? Every man faces oblivion eventually.”

  Max shook his head. “People who see me dispense justice teach their kids that a better world is possible. Folks I rescue go home and raise their kids, making healthier families for the future. Each one of us leaves a legacy of ripples in the lives of those we change through our actions. Bad legacies exist, too, like Papa Sal, but people move on and forget them. They’re overcome and then disappear. But good legacies mean that even after I’m long forgotten, hundreds of years from now, the human race is better off and carries the lessons I taught.

  “While you contemplate oblivion, I look forward to an endless legacy of spiritual descendants living with justice and truth in their hearts, people marching forward with hope. That’s what’s left of me after I die. What’s left of you, Johnny?”

  Johnny looked like he’d been struck. He turned away, looking thoughtful.

  “I’m with you, Max.” Hank nodded firmly. “If you say we can get out, I’m with you. If there’s a way to make this shithole world better, you count me in until they put me in a hole. Give me some purpose in my life and show me how to make things better.”

  “You got it, bro.” Max shot the large man a smile. “Welcome to the Reapers.”

  “The Reapers,” Hank repeated. “That’s a pretty awesome name.”

  “Our motto is, ‘Kill ‘em all and let God kill ‘em again.’”

  Hank burst out laughing. “That’s so metal.”

  “I know! I keep telling my second-in-command that, but he’s got no appreciation for the barbarian aesthetic.” Max turned serious. “You’re my man now, Hank. A member of my team. Anyone who wants to hurt you has got to kill me first.”